Nintendo spent the back half of its September 9 Direct doing what it usually saves for the very end, and the payoff was a name nobody had on a leak sheet: Metroid Ravenous. It is a new 2D Metroid, it is a Nintendo Switch 2 game, and it arrives on January 28, 2027 - which makes it the first brand-new side-scrolling entry in the series since Metroid Dread shipped in 2021.
Samus is hurt, and she is talking about it
The trailer opens with Samus Aran in bad shape. A mysterious group has attacked her and left her gravely injured, stranded on a moon she now has to climb out of. That framing does two things at once: it gives Ravenous a clean starting point for the usual Metroid ability-stripping ritual, and it hands Samus something she has spent most of the 2D games without - a voice. She narrates, and she does it in the first person.
That is a bigger swerve than it sounds. The 2D Metroid games have historically kept Samus silent to the point of severity; Fusion's internal monologue log entries were considered a departure at the time, and Dread went back to letting her say almost nothing at all. Putting spoken narration in the reveal trailer is a deliberate signal that Ravenous wants to be read as a story, not just a map.
A drain ability, a wall-phasing dash, and Dread's parry survives
The gameplay in the trailer is dense enough to pick apart. The headline addition is an energy-siphoning ability - Samus pulls energy out of enemies through what looks like a tethered pink conduit, which is also the image Nintendo put front and centre on the key art. Given the title, it is safe to assume that draining things is not an optional side mechanic.
Around it: a dash that appears to warp Samus straight through walls rather than merely moving her quickly, a stretch where she runs across the surface of water, and the return of the melee counter that Dread built so much of its boss design around. MercurySteam's parry was the most divisive thing about the last 2D Metroid - it made bosses feel like rhythm tests to some players and like the best fights in the series to others - and its presence here suggests Nintendo landed on the second read.
amiibo and a Special Edition, same day
Nintendo is not staggering the merchandise. A Metroid Ravenous amiibo lineup and a Metroid Ravenous: Special Edition both go on sale on January 28 alongside the game itself. The suit shown in the trailer has a name - the Metroid Suit - and an amiibo figure of it is bundled into the game's collector's package rather than sold separately.
Shipping amiibo on day one is a small but telling scheduling choice. Dread's Samus and E.M.M.I. figures launched with the game in 2021 and immediately went out of stock; doing it again with a wider lineup reads as Nintendo betting that Ravenous carries the same demand, on a console with a much smaller install base than the Switch had four years ago.
Where it sits on the Switch 2 calendar
January 28 is a Thursday, and it is a genuinely uncrowded slot. Nintendo has already dated Monster Hunter Wilds for Switch 2 on December 4 and the Ocarina of Time remake for November 5, which means Ravenous is not fighting anything in Nintendo's own holiday stack - it is the thing that keeps the Switch 2 calendar warm once the holiday window closes.
That is roughly the same trick Nintendo pulled with Metroid Dread, which shipped in October 2021 into a quiet stretch and outsold every previous game in the series. Ravenous gets the January version of that runway, and it gets it as the flagship first-party title of the first quarter.
The rest of the Direct
Ravenous did not air alone. The same broadcast announced Kirby and the World Beyond for spring 2027, confirmed Persona 6 for Switch 2, dated Persona 4 Revival on the platform for May 20, 2027, and put the Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 remakes on Switch 2 for October 16. Danganronpa 2x2 got a January 14, 2027 date, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam landed on December 10, and a free Mario Kart World update with ten classic Super Mario Kart courses went live the same day.
Against that, a new 2D Metroid with a date less than five months out is still the thing people will be talking about tomorrow.
